The Lindzen debate at the Oxford Union was, I think, a rather significant moment in the climate debate. One in which sceptic views got a fair hearing in an open debate. Lindzen was to be accompanied by a panel of invited experts consisting of David Rose, Mark Lynas and Myles Allen. Part 1 was an interview of Lindzen with interjections from the panel, while part 2 opened up the debate to the floor.

A few of us sceptics - Josh, Tallbloke, David Holland and others had met up beforehand and I think it's fair to say that we all expected little from the evening. Mehdi Hasan, the left-wing journalist who was to compere the event had been using the d-word a couple of evenings ago and had said he wasn't a neutral. This didn't bode well. In the event he ran through the gamut of "questions you ask sceptics" - denialism, big oil funding and do on - and in a way that was quite aggressive (but not unfairly so), but I think it fair to say that didn't go the way he expected. I should add that Hasan's handling of the Q&A was exemplary.

Lindzen's laid-back style does not make for good TV and I think Hasan and the TV people might have wished for a more flamboyant figure. However, it does lend him an air of authority and many of the barbs from the chair seemed to simply bounce off Lindzen's avuncular force-field.

The debate was very wide-ranging, covering everything from peer review to climate sensitivity to Milankovitch cycles to policy matters and US libel laws. Lindzen certainly knows his stuff and there was nothing that threw him and only a couple of moments when his quiet calm seemed disturbed.

Head to Head Debates with Mehdi Hasan - FRIDAY 8TH MARCH at 7.30pm - PROF RICHARD LINDZEN

Message: Al Jazeera English is launching a new discussion series called Head to Head, presented by Mehdi Hasan. Head to Head tackles the big issues of our times, from foreign intervention to faith and American supremacy.

This week’s recording tackles the thorny issue of climate change as Mehdi Hasan challenges one of the world’s leading climate sceptics, MIT Professor Richard Lindzen and asks, Is Climate Change Fact… or Fiction?

The event will be filmed in front of a live audience at the Oxford Union with questions from the audience.

We’d be delighted if you, or indeed any of your friends and colleagues would like to attend the recording, and take part in the discussion. I’m conscious you may not be based in the UK, but I’m sure many of your readers are. I’d love it if you could either publicise the event on your blog or perhaps tweet about the event if you use twitter. If you tweet about it, please use our email address for tickets: debates@aljazeera.net

The event will be televised globally on Al-Jazeera English later in the year. Al Jazeera English has an audience of 280 million households around the world and we’ll soon be broadcasting to 60 million new households in the US.

Dr. Shaviv, a professor of physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, will discuss the evidence demonstrating that the sun has a large effect on climate and the physical mechanism for this link.

He will show that by considering the solar forcing, a much more consistent picture emerges for the observed 20th century climate change, with part of it being solar and part being anthropogenic.

In this picture, however, Earth's climate sensitivity is modest and therefore the 21st century global warming is expected to be modest as well (about 1°C). Date: March 21, 2013 Time: 11:30am-1pm Where: Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2325, Washington, D.C.

The Heartland Institute is partnering with the Germany-based European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) to host the Eighth International Conference on Climate Change. The event is also the Fifth International Conference on Climate and Energy. This is the second time The Heartland Institute has hosted a climate conference outside the United States. The fifth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-5) was held in Sydney, Australia in 2010.

Dr. S. Fred Singer, Heartland senior fellow and director of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, and Heartland Senior Fellow James M. Taylor join many internationally renowned scientists for the first two-day ICCC-sponsored event in Europe.

The Heartland Institute has hosted seven previous International Conferences on Climate Change, the most recent in Chicago in May 2012. More information on those previous conferences — including videos of the presentations by some of the world’s most respected climate scientists — can be found at the ICCC Web site.

The following comments may be used for attribution. For more information, contact Heartland Institute Communications Director Jim Lakely at jlakely@heartland.org or 312/377-4000. On deadline, send an email or call/text 312/731-9364.

You are advised to arrive about 12.30pm to get through security, further details will be posted on WeatherAction, ClimateRealists and other sites

· THE SCIENCE – CO2 CLIMATE WARMIST THEORY HAS FAILED

Report on the dramatic weather of the year and exposing climate and weather falsities put forward by CO2 warmists - BBC; PLUS the physics of why the CO2 theory is absurd AND some exciting forecasts – Piers Corbyn.

· IT’LL COST YOU! – CO2 WARMIST POLICIES ARE A TAX CON AND DON’T WORK EVEN IN THEIR OWN TERMS –

The failure and crippling costs and sheer madness of wind farms, solar panels, carbon capture and so on; while shale gas and other sources are available in abundance to meet energy needs.

Where better than the Qatari capital to perform the last rites over the Kyoto Protocol?

It’s uniquely appropriate that November’s UN Climate Summit – the last before the Kyoto Protocol formally expires on December 31st – is taking place in Doha. In the league of the world’s highest per-capita greenhouse gas emitters, Qatar currently ranks at the very top. Where better than the Qatari capital to perform the last rites over the Kyoto Protocol?

Not that that’s how November’s talks will be sold, you understand. In typical UN double-speak, the Climate Summit secretariat will fashion a form of words suggesting that the Kyoto process is alive and well and merely moving into a ‘new phase’. So why do the terms ‘flogging’ and ‘dead horse’ come to mind?

When the 1997 Kyoto Protocol finally came into force in 2005 its commitments were only ever aspirational. Yes, a few states, notably in Europe, played the game by making voluntary commitments towards carbon cutting targets. It made little difference. The increasingly coal-fired fast-industrializing nations including China, India, and Brazil, all contributed to blowing away prospective gains elsewhere.

Climate science skepticism in Germany now has spread from a few once marginalized groups over to the junior member of Germany’s coalition CDU-FDP government, the Free Democrats Party (FDP). Hat tip: Ökowatch.

The FDP is holding a skeptic conference at the end of this month. This is the first time any political party in Germany holds a “skeptic” conference, and thus marks a watershed event in Germany when it comes to climate science skepticism. Make no mistake – it’s a clear signal.

It used to be that every political party in Germany, from the communists to the conservatives, accepted the science underpinning the man-made climate catastrophe. But that’s changing now. Germany’s Free Democrats (FDP) party appears to be breaking away from the blind, stampeding herd and is holding a conference that casts serious doubt on global warming dogma, which has gripped Germany for over 2 decades, and the direction of Germany’s environmental and energy policy.

Of course skeptical conferences have been held in Germany, but never has one been sponsored by a political party, let alone one that is in power.

Ökowatch writes that “a conference on the topic of climate organized by a political party is taking place for the first time in Dresden on June 30, 2012“. It is one that will offer an alternative view in the debate: The state faction of the FDP Saxony is holding together with ALDE, the Alliance of Liberal Parliamentarians in the EU, a climate conference titled: “Are we beyond rescue? Between climate catastrophe and eco-hysteria.”

Moscow is holding an international conference on space weather and its effects on the Earth and human health.

The topic is highly controversial, as up until now there are many uncertainties concerning the driving mechanisms of solar-terrestrial relations. However, when it comes to space flights and further space exploration, one cannot deny the immense influence that space radiation will have on future space travelers.

Synchronized with the Sun

Weather forecasting is not a very old phenomenon. It originated back in the years of World War II, and bloomed thanks to the help of weather satellites. Space weather observations are even younger, as solar winds, the main factor that affects the changes the Sun is undergoing at any given moment, was discovered only in the late 1950s. Even though some hints on how the Sun is linked to the Earth had existed before, experimental observations – and thus studies of solar weather – began no earlier than space exploration.

The conference titled “Space Weather Effects on Humans in Space and on Earth” is currently being held by Moscow’s Space Research Institute, with around 200 participants from 11 countries, represented by both physicists and physicians, studying the effects of solar activity upon the Earth.

The theme of the 7th International Conference on Climate Change was “Real Science, Real Choices.” We featured approximately 50 scientists and policy experts speaking at plenary sessions and panel discussions exploring what real climate science is telling us about the causes and consequences of climate change, and the real consequences of choices being made based on the current perceptions of the state of climate science.

Major developments on the science front since the last ICCC took place include publication of a new report by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) updating its 2009 report, Climate Change Reconsidered, and a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on climate change and extreme weather events.

» How much "Man Made" CO2 Is In The Earth's Atmosphere?
I think ALL of the CO2 in the Earth's Atmosphere is from man.
I'm not sure how much "Man Made" CO2 is in the Earth's Atmosphere.
There is .04% CO2 in the Earth's Atmosphere and of that "Man" has added an extra 4% (1 part in 62,500)